Page 111 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

His gaze is locked to mine, and there’s something there. Something that almost looks…stricken?

But I’ll never know. Because I turn and duck into my office, and for good measure, I lock the door behind me.

And I don’t come out again until morning.

CHAPTER FOUR

Neitheroneofus speaks of that night.

Neither one of us really speaks at all, for that matter, which I decide is just as well. And soon enough it is time to head over to France and enter what I’ve been thinking of as the endgame in this little pretense of ours.

It has only been two weeks. This is a good thing. He cannot have done too much damage in that time—and I know that aside from Tess, he has seen very few people who will connect his face to the mysteriousLuc Garnier.I assume that when he gets what he wants from this party he will disappear.

I amhopinghe will.

I have dug up as much information as possible on the expected guests, and I have some names, but no idea what it is I should be looking for. And more to the point, no idea whatheis looking for, either.

He is unreadable in every regard.

What I can’t understand is why I remain…fascinated.

Much more fascinated than I ought to be with a con man who’s taken over the firm I built and the figurehead I’ve created.

I can’t make sense of it. I want to tell myself I feel the same sense of paralysis I did when I realized he could expose me to the world as the liar my stepmother always called me, back in those days when I told only truths. I want to assure myself that I’m only going along with this because he claimed this would only last a short while. I want to believe that this is me white-knuckling it through until he disappears.

But that fascination lingers in me like smoke, making me a liar all over again.

Making me wonder if even I should trust me.

But it is not until we are both sitting in a town car, heading for the airport, that he informs me that we will not be taking the commercial flight I’ve been expecting.

“What do you mean? Tess booked the tickets—”

“Luc Garnier does not travel commercial,” he says dismissively.

He does not even look at me as he says it. And I want to argue—about a great many things—but I stop myself. Because he is not wrong about the way Luc Garnier travels. I have always made it seem as if he has his ownfleetof jets.

How is it possible that this man can know a character I made up better than I do?

The car takes us to a private airfield that I have been to before, not far from Manhattan. And though I am beginning to feel something like trepidation—I tell myself it’s just the lingeringunsettledfeeling of being schooled on my own creation by the person pretending heishim—but I refuse to let him see any of it. So I follow Not Luc as he crosses the tarmac and climbs the waiting steps to a sleek, unmarked plane that waits there for us.

It is clearly not the kind of plane that a person can charter. I see that at once as we board. It is privately owned. The devil is in the details, as ever. The hints here and there that this is not a craft that needs to project a certain neutral elegance, accessible to anyone who can meet the going rate. This plane isopulent.Fewer of the nautical wood and brass flourishes that screamfinance bro.From the moment we step inside, everything is bright and gold and hushed, like the lobby of a fine hotel. We move through a dining area—complete with a dining table that looks like it seats twelve—then into a lounge area that is set up to give the impression of more space than there ought to be on a plane, with crescent-shaped couches and tables that could seat four.

This is definitely not a charter.

And my impression is confirmed when I see Luc lift a brow at the flight attendant who has led us through this quiet, gorgeous, sleekly designed plane. She turns to me and smiles.

“Welcome aboard,” she says in scrupulous English, though she has much the same accent as he does. “Mr. Garnier—” and she doesn’t stumble over the name, but still “—we expect to take off within fifteen minutes.”

“Good,” he says, and nods, which is apparently enough of an order for her to turn and stride off with purpose.

I am certain that this is his own private plane, whoever he is, but any identifying details have been removed. Meaning that if I knew more about jet interiors, maybe there would be clues in the silk coverings on the couches and chairs, or the recessed lighting that makes it feel like we’re outside. But otherwise, there is nothing in plain sight that I can use to triangulate his identity. There is a hallway that extends beyond the lounge we’re in, but Luc waves me to one of the tables. I sit where he directs me, because I want to exudecalm serenity.

What Ifeelis…on edge.

We are not even alone, Luc and I, as the plane rolls down the runway and takes off. I know that his staff is here, but it feels perilous, somehow, to leave New York in the company of this man.

To follow him into the unfamiliar when I already can’t quite trust myself around him.

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